For 60 years Prince Philip has been the man who walks a few feet behind the Queen.
It is not a glamorous role, nor even one he might have sought for himself, but from the Queen’s point of view it is one whose importance cannot be exaggerated.
Perhaps she might have been able to do it all without him — but it would have been harder.
While she has been Head of State, he has been head of the family, a source of strength and calm in stormy times, including the divorces of three of their children and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Outspoken and adventurous where she is cautious, he is the perfect foil.
Their relationship has not always run smoothly. He was criticised early in her reign for going on a long overseas tour without her. They have rows, like any couple. One particularly lively explosion by a lake in Australia saw her hurl tennis shoes and a racquet at him.
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He is a difficult man, friends admit, and the Queen sometimes finds him difficult, but she adores him and defers to him. It makes their moments of fondness all the more touching. Friends say that if he walks into the room at day’s end and says, “Lovely to see you”, her face lights up. When he pays her a compliment, “she looks like a child, like you’d given her the world”.
Lord Charteris, her late private secretary, once said: “Prince Philip is the only man in the world who treats the Queen simply as another human being. I believe she values that. And, of course, it’s not unknown for the Queen to tell him to shut up. Because she’s Queen, that’s not something she can easily say to anybody else.”
They have settled into companionable old age. Sometimes she will return from an evening engagement to find him waiting up. In their public life everything he does is designed to help her. “He is unsung for the total support he gives to the Queen,” a member of staff told the biographer Sarah Bradford. “They’re like Darby and Joan.”